Around The Region

U.S. Border Patrol agents have seized nearly $400,000 of cold hard cash from the refrigeration unit of a commercial semitrailer.

The agents found the cash during an inspection Thursday morning at a checkpoint on Interstate 25 north of Las Cruces. They were tipped to the cargo by a search dog.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection said the truck driver, who was not identified, was released and the case was turned over to Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in Las Cruces for further investigation.

In March, two separate traffic stops by state police turned up more than a quarter of a million dollars in cash. The Drug Enforcement Administration is investigating those cases.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.

A lawsuit is still alive, challenging the way the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is managing a reintroduction program aimed at returning the endangered Mexican gray wolf to the Southwest.

A federal judge rejected a motion by the federal agency to throw out the case, which was filed nearly a year ago by several conservation organizations that have concerns about certain rules governing the reintroduction effort.

"The important thing to us is now that the case is not being dismissed it means we do have a valid argument and it will be heard and hopefully it will give Mexican wolves a chance to recover," Eva Sargent, director of Defenders of Wildlife's Southwest program, said Thursday.

A Fish and Wildlife Service spokesman said Thursday the agency has reviewed the ruling issued this week by U.S. District Judge David Bury in Tucson, Ariz. The agency plans to argue the merits of its actions related to the wolf program.

The Mexican wolf, a subspecies of the gray wolf, was exterminated in the wild in the Southwest by the 1930s.